The new e-book Globish The World Over, observes how a billion people are in need of a consistent language to do business across the globe, describes how the problem is being solved by many non-native English speakers, and discusses the specific outlines of the Globish approach that is being noted as perhaps the only possibility for true Global talk.

The authors Jean-Paul Nerriere and David Hon offer you Chapters 4 and 7 -- for free -- right now! No e-mail, no cookies…your free look. And then, of course, we will tell you how you can buy it!

Since 2004, when the first books about Globish were published, the talk about Globish has changed. In that year, in forums on the Internet, many English teachers looked at the idea -- and then looked away, saying: "I cannot imagine anything important being said in Globish" and "They are going to destroy our beautiful English language" and "Why can't they just learn how to speak decent English?"

Now, 5 years later… there are very different questions floating around in English Language Forums: "How many people now know enough English?" "Should the English teachers, who said 'you will never be good enough,' now still be the keepers of the flame?". And a few are beginning to ask: "How much English is enough?"

Globish may have the answer.

Sample of Globish

English

There are 615000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary. This is a collection of all the words that have been used in the English language. Very few native English speakers know more than 80000 of these words (on their best day). And though they may remember 80000 words, very few native English speakers will use more than 7500 English words in their communication.

Globish

The English Language can be extremely complicated if an English speaker or writer wants to show off all of its possibilities in words and structure to other English speakers. However, the form of English called Globish gives us a simpler, more universal tool to communicate with more than 5 times as many people.

The simple goal of Globish is to reach only a level -- a common ground -- where everyone understands everyone else, everywhere in the world.

Globish Concept

Globish, the dialect of the 3rd Millennium

(Extract from the TIMESONLINE, Dec. 2006 - not in Globish)

Globish is a simple, pragmatic form of English codified by Jean-Paul Nerrière, a retired vice-president of IBM in the United States.

It involves a vocabulary limited to 1,500 words, short sentences, basic syntax, an absence of idiomatic expressions and extensive hand gestures to get the point across.

Mr Nerrière, 66, originally sought to help non-English speakers — and notably his compatriots from France — in the era when business meetings are invariably held en anglais. He advised that instead of struggling to master the Queen’s English, they should content themselves with Globish.

His two books, Don’t Speak English, Parlez Globish and Découvrez le Globish, became bestsellers in France and were also published in Spain, Italy, South Korea and Canada. They are also being translated into Japanese.

“Globish is a proletarian and popular idiom which does not aim at cultural understanding or at the acquisition of a talent enabling the speaker to shine at Hyde Park Corner,” he wrote.

“It is designed for trivial efficiency, always, everywhere, with everyone.”

Mr Nerrière says that his globalised version of English is now so common that Britons, Americans and other English-speakers should learn it too. “The point is that Anglophones no longer own English,” he told The Times in Paris.

“It is now owned by people in Singapore, Ulan Bator, Montevideo, Beijing and elsewhere.”

He says that in multi- national meetings, Anglo-Saxons stand out as strange because they cling to their original language instead of using the elementary English adopted by colleagues from other countries.

Their florid phraseology and grammatical complexities are often incomprehensible, said Mr Nerrière, who added: “One thing you never do in Globish is tell a joke.

“The only jokes which cross frontiers involve sex, race and religion and you should never mention those in an international meeting.”

Mr Nerrière has developed software to help English-speakers to acquire written Globish. The program checks English words and eliminates those not included in the 1,500-strong Globish list.

Mr Nerrière said: “English- speakers need to make the effort to speak like everyone else. If they do, they will not be seen as arrogant and they might even become popular.”

He said that commercial ventures could depend upon the mastery of Globish. “If you lose a contract to a Moroccan rival because you’re speaking an English that no one apart from another Anglophone understands, then you’ve got a problem.”

Aware that purists may baulk at his ideas, Mr Nerrière insists that Globish should be confined to international exchanges. Other languages — French, German, Italian as well as orthodox English — should be preserved as vehicles of culture.